Fort Bragg’s Cemetery Advances with the Technology Age

A team from the Army’s Installation Management Command arrived at Fort Bragg May 3 to help upgrade the post’s cemetery operations as part of the Army’s efforts to bring cemetery operations and record keeping into the 21^st century. The first step in this Army-wide gravesite accountability initiative is to ensure all decedents interred in Army post cemeteries are identified and properly commemorated.

Working with Fort Bragg’s cemetery staff and other local personnel recruited to support the effort, the IMCOM team helped launch the accountability activities by conducting training on related processes and the use of specialized tools. The effort at Fort Bragg’s cemetery entails capturing 2,644 headstone images and reviewing 3,193 interment records for accuracy.

IMCOM’s goal is to complete 100 percent accountability of 27 IMCOM post cemeteries at 17 locations by June 30, 2013, which is expected to require the review of more than 40,000 graves.

The multi-faceted process incorporates many new technologies, including a customized smart phone application to take photos of both the front and back of each grave marker, the Army Mapper tool to capture coordinates of each grave marker location, and a web-based research tool—developed and managed by the Army Analytics Group—to validate the information.

“Fort Bragg’s cemetery is the final resting place of some of this nation’s most dedicated warriors and their loved ones, and as such we owe it to them and their Families to ensure that their memories, and gravesite, are properly accounted for,” said Tom McCollum, Fort Bragg spokesman.

The enterprise-wide gravesite accountability effort is at the direction of the Secretary of the Army, who in 2011, directed commands responsible for post cemeteries to account for all interred and to raise the standards of Army’s cemetery operations. With policy oversight from the Army National Military Cemeteries (ANMC), IMCOM is following the lead of Arlington National Cemetery (ANC), where over 300,000 gravesites have been validated. The same business rules and best practices applied at ANC are being applied here at Fort Bragg.

The ultimate result of these activities will be full accountability of all those interred at Army post cemeteries; an online, searchable database of interment information and grave marker images viewable by the public; and a smart phone application that allows cemetery visitors to easily locate grave locations. Cemetery operations and management will be automated across all Army cemeteries.